Sam Holland (Co-Founder, Informal)

Sam Holland, co-founder of Informal, joins Jim to talk about how a hands-on approach to building led him from early 3D printing and MakerBot to helping companies bring real products to life. What started as curiosity turned into a career built on experimenting and learning directly from the manufacturing process.

They get into the messy reality of hardware, from the gap between prototype and production to the importance of communication, proximity, and experience when working with suppliers. Sam breaks down why most projects fail in execution, not ideas, and how Informal helps teams move faster by connecting them with the right people at the right time.

Sam talks about what it takes to get started today and why building real things early matters more than credentials, and how accessible tools have changed the landscape for hardware founders. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This just sounds like a dream for ADHD people.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I was a nerd. I got an internship by literally like taking a bag of stuff and I was like, hey, I made this.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

So let's talk about the weird stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

They call it the whoop for your poop.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Yeah, let me know the length, length, and girth of your burrito.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

There was definitely this like oh shit moment. What broke, what caught on fire. Blood, split, tears literally can happen. We measured hundreds of burritos and we gathered data.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

I will need a lot more coffee. A lot more coffee. I know we're doing it right. I love hiring people who have made a lot of mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I forgot to take the key out of the lathe one time and it just went boom across the room.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Hey everybody, welcome to the Just Gonna Send it podcast. I'm your host, Jim Belosic. Uh, very special guest today, Sam Holland. Uh Sam, thanks for joining.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Thanks for having me. Very excited about this.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Uh Sam, and you're co-founder, CTO of uh Informal, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah, CTO is uh a decorative term. I'm a co-founder of the company, mechanical engineer.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Okay. Uh tell tell everybody real quick what informal is and why you're so cool to why informal is so cool that we brought you on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Okay, yeah, not me. Uh Informal is very cool. Uh we are a network of over 500 contractors in the hardware space. Engineers, designers, developers, software folks. Our goal is to work with clients from concept to manufactured goods in hand. And my job is matchmaking and building those teams, managing those teams, putting out fires, and then occasionally building our software that automates a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Okay, so it like if I have an idea, I come to informal. I'm like, hey, I I need to make this, you know, this crazy thing. You help with like the engineering and then the matchmaking with someone who can actually make it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Exactly. Yeah, so this database of over 500 folks, I look at who has the best fit in terms of software, experience, location, um, interest, and then we build these teams. So they could be a single mechanical engineer sitting in the office, or they could be an entirely remote hardware product design team. Um it's you know, very it depends, is kind of our our informal slogan. It's like what what can we do? What can't we do? It really depends on what you need.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I I hate that answer, actually. Like the answer is it depends, but it's it's always the best answer though, too, because it's it's the only uh it's the only correct answer. Um we say something similar to it. Yeah, the the the the real answer is like I don't know, but at least like you have some curiosity and you can go solve a problem. So how how long ago did informal start?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Uh it'd be funny if I said it depends. Uh seven, seven years ago, I think roughly, uh pre-COVID. So Nate and I were my co-founder Nate and I started the company in Brooklyn, New York. Um he's more on the community building, go-to-market strategy. He'll run like a mean Kickstarter campaign, and I'm the the nerd in the shadows doing the engineering work. And um yeah, we met and literally started the company the day we met. And we both had jobs, and then we started moving into more consulting and freelance, and everything ramped up really quickly, and then yeah, it's been seven years.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

It's crazy. Holy moly. Okay, that's that's awesome. Um, that's that's about when we started too, you know, pre-COVID. Uh I I don't like code, I don't like thinking about it, but I am curious like what did COVID do to you guys? Like you're just starting and then COVID hit. Was that was that a gift or a curse?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

We were so we were doing remote work. Yeah, it was definitely both. Uh we were remote working for. It depends. I should get a t-shirt or something. Um we got really good at remote work. Remote hardware is, as you know, not simple. Um, but we were using Slack and you know, SAP's tools to manage our time and had processes in place. Um, our network wasn't 500 back then, but we were working on complicated things with teams in different locations. And then I remember COVID hit, and there was this NPR article about like it's so hard to work from home. And I was like, I've been doing this for a year. Like, what are you talking about? Like, this is not that bad. You just need to get good at it. Um, and you need to understand like the trade-offs, right? Um, I bought a ton of 3D printers, laser cutter, you know, anything you need to build stuff in your house as far as possible. Uh good vendor networks and then just good communication. Um but yeah, COVID was weird.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

I think uh you you nailed it where work from home is possible, you just have to get good at it. Like what what do you think? Um what's the hardest thing to get good at, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I well, I think we work with a lot of engineers. Uh I'm an engineer as well, and I had to learn to communicate to the client when I'm doing work. Um, you know, you have a task desk, your job is to do the thing, but then you need to stop sometimes and say, I just did the thing that you asked me to do. Uh, and here's how far I've gone, right? And so even that simple act of communication is not intuitive sometimes, and it's not part of what you do at a nine to five, right? Someone else is telling you, do the work, and you do the work. When you're doing like consulting and freelance work, it's more about, I think you need me to do this, I'm gonna go do it. And then you kind of pop your head up and you say, Hey, by the way, something's changed, and here's what we're doing, or I'm a little delayed, or I'm ahead of schedule. That communication is, I think, the big delineation between like an average contractor or freelancer and someone who's like very good at what they do.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, uh a million percent. I mean, just when when we hire contractors, um, the best ones tell us uh uh here's an update, and the update is there is no update, you know. But if they're just they're just at least communicating what is yes, and it makes such a huge difference because so many people we think that they ghosted us. It turns out they're just working with their head down and everything's great. But every once in a while I'm like, oh crap, what's what's going on? So informal, you started seven years ago, but what were you doing before informal?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Uh yeah, so I um I've been a product design engineer, mechanical engineer ever since graduating college up here. Um I started working on 3D printers for MakerBot when they were like a startup. And so I joined uh, you know, like a snot-nosed 21-year-old out of college thinking I can do everything, and they're like, cool, go design parts for injection molding now. Got thrown completely in the deep end, and then next thing I knew, I was visiting factories in China and then eventually leading like a small team of engineers on the Makerbot method 3D printer, which I have right over there. Um and some other you know, products that didn't make it to market, but I learned a lot by just sitting tossed in the deep end.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

I remember Makerbot when it was like it was plywood, right? It was like inter blocking plywood. I mean, that was what year was that?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

That was 2014, 2013? No, before then, 2010. I was after that. They had built the replicator 2, which is like their flagship sheet metal uh product. And then I came in on what they call the fifth gen, which was kind of a bummer, but we learned a lot, and basically I helped work on a big 3D printer called the Z18, and then later on on the method where we, you know, took all the lessons we learned and fixed the problems. Um, and that's where we kind of the the whole company grew up from this maker mentality into this like, oh my god, we got to use GDT and we got to find vendors and build production lines and all that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

That that's a wild transition. Um, we've we've kind of gone through that ourselves a little bit too. Like all of a sudden you wake up one day and you're like, oh, we got to put put on our big boy pants. Um there's a lot of people relying on us and we have to shape up. What what was the kind of hardest part of that transition? Yeah, you know, going from hackers makers to like trying to put on a suit and tie.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Um yeah, it was it was interesting. I think with the the fifth generation products we worked on, which were like, you know, fresh out of college kids mostly working on 3D printers and learning a lot. And then that transition over to the next generation where the fifth generation didn't go well. We got panned in reviews, competition was heating up. There was definitely this like oh shit moment hit hitting leadership. And um, the next product we worked on took like three years to launch because it was build, test, test, test, test, test, and then finally launch it. So when I left the company, they still hadn't launched the printer I worked on two and a half years before because it was just in the lab running cycles. So I think there was this overcorrection of like the first ones we launched were like, hey world, what do you think? And everyone's like, that sucks. And then the second gener the second ones we did were more like overcorrected to let's not release it until it's perfect. Which is like that engineering mentality of like, when do you let go?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah, because we fight that too, where we like to iterate on production, basically. Like, let's let's push it out there, let's find the bugs as fast as we possibly can, as long as we can fix them fast. But you can go a little too fast and then break everything, and then everyone gets pissed. So I don't know, how do you how do you walk that line? You said that the company may be overcorrected. Do you keep oscillating back and forth until you find level?

SPEAKER_01 8:52

I uh I can tell you they're not really a company anymore, so I'm not quite sure uh the answer. We do this ourselves. Like I write our software for informal. We do everything's automated from like meeting the client to creating proposals and tracking time. And it's the same thing, right? Like you build these tools and you're like, I think they're ready, and then you launch them, and everyone gets mad at you. It's your fault, you put out the fires, and it's that oscillation of uh waiting too long and then launching too early, and then eventually you kind of stabilize that like this is the right thing at the right time.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's hard. It's a sweet spot because if you if you take too long, like if you go that full engineer mentality and you sit there and you try and make it perfect before you launch, uh competition can beat you, uh, or or you'll launch and you think it's perfect and then get punched in the face on day one. Or you launch too early and then your brand is at risk, you know, because all of a sudden people are like, oh, this is garbage, and you know, you only get one chance to make a first impression or whatever. So that's I don't know, that's a huge challenge. Is that something that you run into at informal all the time? Because dealing with so many different customers and manufacturers and everything, you must have to navigate that a hundred times a day.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Oh, yeah. And I think the hardest part is like, especially with new clients, uh, folks who are new to hardware, they want to go go go. They want to get things out the door, they want to launch. Um, you can't do a quick over-the-air software update to fix a physical product. That is a very, very, very expensive thing. That's a recall, right? Like millions of dollars of inventory and rework and like apology notes and discounts. Like that kills companies. So my job has to be like helping balance that of uh that that timeline to risk. Like, yeah, we can launch a week, two weeks early, but it's not perfect. Or like we didn't test this weird fringe case. Uh you try and capture it all and you try and provide your best advice, but sometimes people are like, just gonna send it just to use a nice reference.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Well, that's kind of what we do. I I think the hardest thing is, you know, you said like, oh, you know, we have to test for this weird edge case, this this fringe case. No one is a better tester than the public, though. You know, so like no matter how good your QA team is, and and you test and test and test, uh, the public has unlimited creativity and they will find a way to break things that you could never imagine.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Oh, it's amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

So I don't know. I I guess I always bias towards like getting it in the hands of a bunch of people fast, but uh, I don't know. If you're if you're making something, especially with molds involved, holy crap, I I would not want to remake a mold. Um especially when you're on deadline. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

But there's processes for that, right? Like you design for I'm gonna sneak up on my tolerance, you know, I'm gonna under design. So my snap hooks, for example, might have more clearance, and then I can always remove metal from the mold and bring the plastic in. So there's strategies you can take to um go to molding and then dial everything in later. It's a whole mentality. It's it's cool, but it's like, you know, it's expensive.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Well, and like you said, you got thrown into the world of injection molding like right out of college.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

And it was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yeah. So how'd how'd you get the job like coming out of college? Um, one of the things we talk about is we we typically don't hire, well, us and a lot of other manufacturers. We don't necessarily hire on like your grades or what degree you have. It's it's a lot of it, it's about like portfolio or background. So what helped you get that kind of job out of college?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

I just actually talked to a couple college kids and I was explaining to that. I was like, get some experience, do portfolio projects, that's way more important than a 4.0 GPA. Um, I was in college up here. I loved 3D modeling. I just like in my spare time would just like 3D model weird stuff. We had a class where you were 3D printing um chest pieces and the printer broke. This was like, you know, way back uh 15 years ago. Um and so the 3D printer was like a big room-sized machine, it was the Stratosyst machine, and it broke. And so they didn't print our stuff. And I was like, that sucks. I really wanted one. So I bought a kit and I built my own 3D printer, like in my dorm room, and I was printing out shot classes and like necklaces from people and learned to like tweak and design parts for the printer. This is back when they were like machine rods and printed parts, and they barely, barely worked. But I fell in love with like I can come up with an idea, I can make a thing. And then I got an internship by literally like taking a bag of stuff I 3D printed downtown to this design firm, and I was like, hey, I made this. And they like the guy was like, uh, I guess you can work for me. So he just like he didn't have an opening, he just like hired me.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And that love of like 3D printing and product design got me to MakerBot where I was like, I love 3D printers, I love working on this stuff, please bring me in. And it was the same thing where they're like, okay, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

I mean, to t all the young guys, all the young guys listening out there that are like, hey, how do I get a job? Um, yeah, showing up with your like contraption and setting it down on a desk and saying, This is what I do or this is what I've done. It it immediately shows like, oh, this guy knows like uh he's he's seen failures before, he's seen success, he's uh knows how to work with his hands. Um it's just it's the best resume you can ever have if you have something physical that you can bring, or even just like photos or something, but like, hey, here's here's this rocket that I built, and you know, we launched it off in the desert, whatever. Um we've had people on the show that that that went from like model rocketry or college rocketry directly into jobs at SpaceX or Blue Origin or whatever. So yeah, super, super cool. Okay, that's awesome to hear.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

And that story of like here's the failure, I think is actually more important than like here's the final shape. I don't really care. Like, what did you do to get there? What what broke, what caught on fire? Like blood, sweat, tears literally can happen. But like that story of we iterated, we went down this path, we went down this path, and then the final direction is, I think, is so cool to find. Like that story is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

As an employer, you want I I love hiring people who have made a lot of mistakes. Like, because I I don't necessarily want them learning those mistakes on on my dime. Uh if you've if you crashed the machine uh at your high school, that's awesome because maybe you won't crash my machine as often. Um related is sometimes if people do make a mistake here uh and they're like, oh man, I crashed the machine or started a fire or broke something. Um oftentimes we're not gonna fire because I'm like, okay, cool, you got that out of your system. You're probably not gonna do it again. If if they don't feel bad about it, then yeah, usually they're gone. But oftentimes they feel really, really bad. Like, that's no problem. You're not gonna get fired. Just try not to do it again. If they do it again, then we make them pee in a cup and then yeah, see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

I remember I forgot to take the the key out of a lathe one time and it just went boom across the room, and that other side of the room had a couple other holes in it, and I was like, gotcha. Yep, other people have done this. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah, but uh like if you've never done it, um yeah, you just you don't have that built-in instinct. You know, after you make a mistake, you're like, I'm not gonna do that again. I stubbed the crap out of my toe the other day on our couch, and now I take a totally different route around my couch. I'm just like, it hurts so bad. I was like, screw that couch. I'm actually scared of the couch now. Uh so I'm working backwards. This is a weird podcast. Sorry. This is a like minimum level of coffee that I need to do a podcast. Um so still going backwards, so college. Let's start at like high school, I guess. What are you doing in high school where you're like, ooh, I think I know what I want to do in college? Because when you when you started college, you must have known, like, hey, I want to go into engineering.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, I was I was a nerd.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

I'm still I I wasn't gonna say that, but it sounded like you were someone who knew exactly what classes to take in college.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

I so I was part of like an afterschool engineering group where we like took a Buick car seat and mounted it on a wheelchair and like retrofitted it so you could control and drive it around. Um, I was part of like STEM Day. I worked at science camps. I have a tattoo of Lego on my my arm. Like that's how I originally got in was Lego. Like Lego was the start, tearing things apart in my house as a kid. Like a VCR would break and I'd rip it apart and be like, oh, that's cool, and then throw it away. Um that learned that turned into a fascination with engineering. And I originally was like, I'm gonna be an electrical engineer. And I took an internship, I had an amazing internship. Um, they gave me some electrical engineering challenges, and I was like, I want to be a mechanical engineer. Like things are breaking, I have no idea what's going wrong. Um, but with mechanical, you can at least kind of intuit it. So I switched when I was like a junior in high school, like the direction I wanted to go, which is still crazy early in your life, and then just got reps. Uh worked at engineering firms, uh, really good internships early, and that just like set me on that path.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's there's kind of two paths where people know, like, you know, like with Legos or whatever, they're like, this is what I want to do with my life, and then they're always on that path. And then there's the people that like wander through school and college and then college again, and they're like, ah, maybe I need my masters or whatever. Um, and then they bounce from career to career, and there's they're always just kind of exploring. And sometimes they land in a really cool spot because it was completely random. And then there's the people who land in the really cool spot because it was just like born into them. So I I guess you're the ladder.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

I think it was like day one. I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. I'll I'll get there. Um, very lucky to have I think that upbringing and like opportunities, and just like I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and that this is exactly what I want to be doing. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

So, okay, I'm jumping around again. I don't know if this is good or bad. Dom will watch this back and tell me if I'm screwing this up.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

I'll keep resetting like this so that you can cut at different Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Well, we'll shoot this again tomorrow. Just wear the same clothes. Yeah. Um perfect. So so out of college, uh you worked for Makerbot. That was super cool. And but then you didn't go right from MakerBot into informal. Like what tell me about some other jobs that you've had.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

I had one other job. Um so in between uh Makerbot was startup grew, so I was an employee like 150. By the time I left, there was like 580 of us. We got acquired by Stratasys, Culture Shift, um, four years of it, a bunch of layoffs, um, different offices, a lot of China trips. And I started to be like, okay, I want to try something else. And I worked at this really tiny company called Mevo that was owned by Livestream at the time.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

This was very familiar. Those are the cameras that we use for the pod. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

That's you.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Okay, I've like touched your product. I've touched your product. Whatever. Yeah. You might need more coffee. Those are awesome cameras. Yeah, they're all they're good cameras, yeah. Highly recommend.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

So I was like the first product design engineer to hire at this company. It was a team of five. Um, my boss was a product design engineer and he was doing, you know, VP of engineering work. Um, so he needed someone to kind of backfill for him. So he took me under his wing and taught me like, you know, at MakerBot, I knew large pieces of plastic and how to connect them, and die casting, and extrusion, and sheet metal. This is like micro scale. Um, so there's like bent metal parts and thermal issues and circuit boards. This was diving into the stuff I really wanted to do. Um, a lot more trips to China, um, working with a really small team on like board layout and industrial design team. Um, but yeah, like we own the CAD. We went to the factory in China, we worked with them and we refined it. So this was really fun. This is like, you know, a lot of the features inside I designed with my boss and this team in China, and that's it. Like a very, very small team making a very cool thing.

unknown 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

That was really fun. And I don't know, I don't know what generation they're on. Are are they still on like first generation? Or I would like we just bought a new set the other day. Like they're they're good cameras.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

This was the OG. This is the one I originally worked on.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, it's cute. And then we went over to this form factor. The company got acquired by Vimeo and then acquired by Logitech.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

So they did exchange a couple times.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

And for anyone who doesn't know, um, those those cameras are really cool because you can hook a bunch of them up together. So to get like three different shots or whatever. Um, and then they what do they do? They listen, they or they have like mics or something. So it'll like the software will auto-edit too. So if you have two or three speakers, um, it does like half the editing for you, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah, they're designed to simulate a multicam setup. So with one camera, you could theoretically, it's like a wide, uh, a high-resolution wide angle lens, and it can crop down. So if you and I were in the same room, it would have like a virtual camera for me and you, and then one of both of us. And depending on who's talking, it would kind of like shift between. It's really crazy. It's really good technology.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

So you talked about going to China. You went to China a lot for uh MakerBot, and then you went to China more for for uh this company. Give us like there's this whole you know, reindustrialized, reshore, whatever, and everyone's like, uh, America needs to do more stuff, and China's kicking our butt. Tell me a couple of Things that like China just does incredibly well that we need to we need to duplicate, we need to replicate over here.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

So I've been thinking about this a lot actually with my co-founder Nate of like, how do we how do how do companies compete, right? And I think actually, not to sound pandering, but like what you all are doing is a very good example of like vertical integration and automation. Um, what China does really well is throwing bodies at a problem and having like literal cities devoted to manufacturing. We don't have that anymore. But you go to Dongwon or Shenzhen, and it's just like roads to contract manufacturers. And down the road is their plastic guy and their cable guy and their screw guy and their test fixture guy. They're all within like 10-minute drives, right? So you're building this very complicated electromechanical system like this camera. It's not all made in one house, but all the parts come together from this like spoken wheel, whatever concept you want to call it. Um, those distances between the vendors are like day trips maximum. So if something goes wrong, your guy comes to the factory and takes a look. But also it means really tight integration on quality control, timelines, and just collaboration. We don't have that. Like if I were to build a factory in Vermont, I'd probably be leveraging send cut send for sheet metal parts in Reno, right? Like that's a long drive. That's that's three time zones away. Um it's not 15 minutes up the road because I don't know who's here and I don't trust them. Like we don't have that relationship.

unknown 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

So that's the hard one. And it it seems like it seems like there's this perception that uh hey, I can just, you know, uh use WhatsApp or or WeChat or whatever. Um and when I talk to to the guys in China, they just say yes and they figure it out. And people are imagining that they found this one vendor in China who can say yes to everything because he has this huge factory with unlimited capabilities. I I think that it's actually like they just say yes because they're like, yeah, I know a guy. Like they actually have a really good uh contact list. And and it's it's it's not as it's not this crazy huge factory um with like you know 10,000 people, uh craftsmen who can make anything. It's just like a dude on a scooter who's hauling ass through the city, like talking to 20 of his buddies, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

And not only that, but like they've been doing this since 1960, right? Like they've been mass-producing consumer electronics, just to use an example case, right? Which means that their engineering folks have seen hundreds of projects. And so you bring something new to them, to you, you're like, this is a new challenge, no one knows how to solve. And they're like, oh, I did that last week, or like three years ago, right? Here's how we do this crazy collapsible core mold. The institutional knowledge of how to make good molds, how to solve these weird challenges. Um, they've seen it all, right? Like, and so they can just be like, oh, we've done that five years back. Here's a crazy design we did, let's kind of reference that. And so that those reps are there, that cycle's built in.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah. Yeah, I think I think the proximity is really interesting, you know, being able to like go and and see these guys in person, um, you know, or go to your buddy, your plastics guy down the street and get something solved. But I I think the the actual core it sounds like it's actually the communication and you know, maybe more of the face-to-face. Like in the US, probably because we don't have proximity all the time, it's done through email, you know, or phone call or or whatever. Um and then if people are busy, they don't respond. But it's totally different when a guy walks in the door, you know, walks in the door with a problem and you're like, okay, let me look at it, uh, versus an email that's like, hey, can you like solve this problem for me? If you're too damn busy, you're not gonna respond. So um I I don't know how we overcome that. Uh and some some people are just assholes too. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Well, that's that's so that's the other problem, right? Um, I've worked with domestic manufacturing. We did that at MakerBot for years, then we switched to Chinese. Um, you know, we'd have an issue with our plastic supplier, and I'd go down and visit them in Florida, and it's finger pointing. Oh, you guys designed it wrong, or you guys said you want this, and so then we have to say, oh, we wanted that. It's just like contentious. In China, I've been to the factory where something's going wrong, and like you walk with your hands behind your back because if you put your hands out, you get swarmed by like factory line leaders who are like, what's wrong? So, like, if you pick up something and look at it, someone else is watching, you look at it. You put it down, and they're like a whole team will swarm and talk about it. So, like, you have to like I have to be like careful about what I say or do because they want to make the thing better. Um, we had an issue at MakerBot where the production line, there was like a bottleneck. You know, you build a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit there. Things were piling up. We looked at it, we talked to the team, we went out to dinner, they're like, just go out to dinner. Came back the next day, brand new production line, new fixtures up and running, fully balanced. Like, you don't you can't do that. Like, no one's doing that here. Everyone's like, I'm going home, right? Like it's a weird cultural difference.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Yeah, like you said, it's it's all blame. Um, you know, they're not taking ownership over it, or um, I guess maybe they're just missing some like basic customer service, you know, it's like the customer is always right type thing. Um, that's that's definitely dying in the US. Uh it happens all the time. There's there's a lot of finger pointing. Yeah, I again I don't know how we get over that.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah, well, I think part of it is just being like, this is the way we run our company, is like just a fundamentally different thing. We're not contentious, we want to work with you. Like, I'm working with this now, it sounds again pandering, but I'm working with your team on parts and like brainstorming with Bryce and Cutter on parts right now, being like, hey, what if we do it like this? I don't get that with other vendors. They're like, we're not gonna make it, or here's the quote, we'll talk to you later. But to say, like, hey, do you mind tweaking this geometry and like it'll make it way easier for us? That collaboration is is missing right now. So it's cool to see.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Yeah. No, I I I know we're doing it right. Like, I'm that's that's easy.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

But how do others do it right?

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Uh yeah, it's like America as a whole. I mean, maybe, you know, maybe we have to lead by example. Others are leading by example. There's a lot of great new manufacturer manufacturers happening right now. Um, you know, these Gen 2, Gen 3, uh, you know, even startups are are approaching it completely differently. Um and then there is a big push to go vertical so that you don't have to rely on the weird plastic sky. Or, you know, for us, like third-party anodizing is a wild nightmare. Uh third-party powder coating is insane. Uh, sometimes just getting raw materials from two or three different vendors, you're you're gonna have a favorite. And then sometimes you have not a favorite, but you still have to use them because they're the only ones who have it. You have to manage all these weird relationships. So the more of the supply chain that you can control, um, the better everything is, uh, you know, outside of just having a city that's full of cool manufacturing stuff. Although I I I I would argue, I would argue almost every city has uh they have they have a lot of capabilities. You just don't know about them. They're hidden, you know, in these industrial areas with no signage, and they're not really open for tours or anything. And that maybe that's another cultural thing in in China, is like maybe they encourage you to walk in and see their factory.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

I I haven't had that, but I also have no idea how to speak the language, so I just like walk down the street and wave. Um but yeah, like we discovered when I was in Brooklyn, we discovered like a giant vacuum forming facility that's in like Jersey City, and they're just cranking things out. We're like, this is here, like this there's manufacturing going on right down the road, nobody knows about it. Um and there's Thomas Net, but you need like a PhD to operate Thomas Net.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Like that's true, yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yeah, but I think the challenge, like, and I think one of the cool things here too is you know, sheet metal, its own set of challenges, but fundamentally it's uh the raw material is flat and there's no like dye or tool making. And I think that's really nice. Injection molding is really, really complicated, and it requires someone who's like, you know, you're making $50,000, $100,000 steel blocks that are precision ground. Like, we don't have that capability and knowledge here, and you can't automate that either. It's really it's something that we're like missing, and I don't know the answer. I think it's 3D printing and like learning new technologies versus trying to compete with the old systems.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Yeah, yeah. No, I I like that. Um, there is some really interesting 3D printing technology that we've seen where you know it's uh uh moldless injection molding, basically. You know, it's it's really close to injection molding and and even in decent quantities, you know, injection molding is always gonna have its place, you know, with those large, you know, um large quantities. But man, if you need you know a thousand units or maybe even ten thousand units, there's some pretty cool technology out there now.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

I tell everyone a thousand pieces is the worst quantity of something to make because you're not amortizing your tooling cost yet, but you're just you need it, right? So it's like if you want to make 500, we're okay, 200, easy. A thousand sucks. It sucks. Um I have on my phone like open carts on Alibaba for injection molding machines, and every night I look at them and I'm like, nope, no, no, no, no, no, don't do it. So I'm almost there, but I haven't bought one yet.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Uh how many, how many tons of of uh how many how much tonnage do you need to like get started, do you think, uh, on a machine? Like what's what's what's like the minimum that's that's gonna be more than a toy, but you know, allow you to make some of the things. I don't even know the numbers.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

I think it's I don't even I honestly don't even know the numbers. I the other day I'm doing a presentation for this conference. I think you're going to it, the kinetic conference.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Uh I I surfaced an animation of just this little ring right here being injection molded, that little circle. The mold is like this bit.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Oh my god. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Sliders and like so, yeah, it's a tiny piece of plastic. You think you can just like make it on a little handheld machine. You need all the complexity and sliding parts. Like, I'm not buying that machine. I could and I might, but I shouldn't, because then I have to learn how to make it and all that other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Well, and then you have to make all the molds and and it's crazy. It's not just it's not just making uh like a two-piece mold, it's making a 50-piece mold with all these moving parts and injector pins and cool lines and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

It's magic.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Someday. Some someday we'll we'll poke at it when I would love to poke at it as well. Yeah, so then I'll I will need a lot more coffee. A lot more coffee. Yeah. Um okay, so so you worked at Mibo, and then but you said like uh the first day that you met your co-founder, you're like, let's start this company. So how did how did that uh encounter happen?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

So yeah, Mibo was amazing. Um very small company, very small product line. Um we weren't you know a super flush with cash startup. So we had one product we were working on, and I would work on the product, and then in between these product cycles, we'd go to China or we'd wait for the parts to come back. So it's like eight months of working, four months of sitting around and waiting. I got really, really good at ping pong. Um played a lot of ping pong. And uh I was great, but then I was like, my brain's going crazy. Like I like.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

What's your serve to what what's your what's your like cool ping pong serve technology? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

I do the underhand uh-huh pencil grip upside down, and uh I got a mean little one of these. It's nice. I haven't played in years. Okay, but it's translated well to pickleball.

unknown 33:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Uh are you are you one of the people that's like ultra competitive at pickleball and like get thrown out by all the old ladies?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

I try not to be, and then all of a sudden I'm like, what why am I so mad? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

So uh uh producer Sarah, who's who's listening, she um she's really really good at tennis, and so is her mom. And then they would go and play pickleball. And uh I guess a lot of people play it for fun, and except for Sarah, who plays it to like kill. And uh, I think they got escorted out of a couple courts before. So um okay, so you're playing ping pong. Sorry, sorry, or table tennis? You could you called it ping pong. Like I thought I thought if you're pro, you call it table tennis.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

No, I am not a pro. I am uh in between uh professional and amateur. I don't know what what that spectrum is, but I played too much, but I'm still not good. But I played a lot. Um so yeah, it was like downtime, not using my brain as much as I really wanted to. I fell in love with contracting and freelancing. So after hours, you know, go to like go home, have dinner, and then do some freelance work on this side. And that's where I was like, oh, this is really fun. I get to work on remote control cars and smart mirrors, and I made packaging to hold like tiny donut bites for a client, like that spectrum of technology and like different I don't know, industries that you're playing with, that was where I was like, this is where I want to be.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

So it sounds it sounds like an incredible opportunity. Like people just coming to you with wild ideas and you actually get to make them. Like, okay, it's crazy. Donut hole holder? Like what?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Oh, that's there was a previous generation of donut hole holders, and then later on, I um wait, what's it called?

SPEAKER_02 34:53

What's the what's it's it's donut holder holder? Donut hole holder?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Donut holder. Yep. This is a new uh bad brain. So this comes back to like I like being busy, I like working on things. This is a passion project of mine where I was like, I want to make this thing, and it's like ready for injection molding, it's ready to go. Um but it's that same idea of just like I need to stay busy, I need to keep working on new things and try new things out. But that's what led me into consulting, freelancing, and then eventually meeting Nate and starting this company was our love of like, I want to work on this, I want to work on that, I want to try these industries instead of just staying in the same company, right? Like, yeah. So that's what that's what started it. And then yeah, we've stayed around and now I'm doing this again with the weird stuff.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

So okay, well, so let's talk about the weird stuff. I want to know like some oddball projects like this. It's it's a little bit like us where we have no idea what's coming in the door that day. Um, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna make a million little tiny parts or like two huge big ones or whatever. In your case, it's like you have no idea if your phone is gonna ring and then someone asks for a donut hole holder. Like what what other kind of crazy stuff are people asking you to make?

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Yeah, I mean, this is my favorite one is this burrito holder. Um this woman designed a device. It's like a chapstick tube. And you put a burrito in and you twist it and it raises it up. So it's like a chapstick.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

It's like a it's like a chapstick. Oh my god. That's so microwave safe.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

It's all snapped together. Um, you can wash it. We've done like temperature tests.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Does it keep it warmer?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

A little bit. A little bit, a little bit warmer.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Um is the is there like a specific like burrito vendor that it works best with? Are you like, hey, this is a Chipotle, you know, number six, or or is it a Qdoba, you know, number four?

SPEAKER_01 36:38

So uh I'm actually giving a presentation all about this. Um, but we measured hundreds of burritos and we gathered data. And so we're like finding the mean and the standard deviation of diameters of burritos and lengths, and that feeds back into what's the optimal design that can hold 80% of burritos, right? Like you don't just choose a random size, you're like, let's we're done. Like you have to see what doesn't fit, what does fit. Um, so this is science-based, you know, uh optimal design for it.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Science-based optimal, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

It's silly, but like, you know, you're using actual science and engineering to design something that's fundamentally goofy. And that's where I was like, oh, I really want to do this myself, and I made this. This is my own idea, my own creation. I've measured almost a hundred donut holes to like find the optimal dimensions and everything for it.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

I was gonna say, like, do you have a budget? Like, does the client give you a budget to go buy a bunch of burritos? And do you get to eat a lot of burritos? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

She made an app, and her friends were like every meal they they ate, they'd like take pictures and it was like scanning, and and it was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Yeah, let me know if the length, length, and girth of your burrito.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Dude, that's awesome. How many how many donut holes does the holder hold?

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Uh, three to four. There's a lot of variation in dimensions.

unknown 37:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

It's a little clip that goes on your belt, and then you just pop your hand in and drop it.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Just in case. Okay. Oh, it's like a like a change thing.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Like so you just kind of like poop boop and it pops into your hand and you're good to go. It's got a patent pending mechanism to hold the next one in place so it doesn't fall out. There's like too much work that went into this.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Oh my god, okay. That's people buy these?

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, they can pre-order them.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

We can pre-order, okay. Okay, so Logan. Logan, put the website right here, please. Logan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

You can pre-order it right here. Um, I made a website last year on April on March 31st. I put it on LinkedIn being like, hey, Dunkin' Donuts, I want to trade you this IP for a pontoon boat. And um, I made a whole pitch and a website, and it was radio silent, but I did it the day before April Fool's Day, so everyone was like, What is this? But it went LinkedIn viral, which means nothing. But it was like 200,000 impressions and reshare, like it went up. The website was viewed like 40,000 times in a single day. I didn't put any email capture on it. I forgot to do all the things you're supposed to do. So everyone saw it and laughed and left, but I kept going. And now I have this thing that's like ready for tooling. I have a new website. Um, I'm no longer pitching Dunkin' Donuts. I'm just gonna sell it and see what happens. But it's like stupid and fun, and I don't know. I don't know why we're here.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

This is amazing. I hope uh I hope everyone listening supports this. Go to the website, pre-order. Yeah, this is this is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Donutholder.com.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

I'm I'm glad the uh I'm glad the domain was available.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

14 bucks a year.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

Um what else? Okay, burrito pop, like what's is anything cool that you're working on currently or anything from the past that you're super proud of?

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Um super proud of like lots of really cool projects we've worked on. Um we worked with this team called Throne, and they're in Austin, and they do gut health. So they um they make a camera that goes in your toilet and shoots down, and it looks at what goes in and then analyzes with AI consistency, color, frequency to say, like, you may want to go see a doctor. Or you're doing great. Um it's called whoop, they call it the whoop for your poop. And the team is really small when we started working with them and they grew, and like they're off two awesome dudes. And do they have the merch?

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Like, that's that's another good merch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

I so I took a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

We need it depends and then whoop for your poop, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I want them to make a podcast talking shit with Tim and Scott, which are the two owners. I was like, this is the best name for a podcast ever. Um still waiting on my royalty check for that. But toilet cam. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Yeah. Okay. So I don't know, this just sounds like a dream for ADHD people who can just like tackle new stuff all the time. And then, you know, you're dealing with, I assume, every different type of manufacturing, too, right? Like it's injection molding, it's machining, it's sheet metal, it could be wood and composites, it could be just about anything, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Oh, yeah, like there's a dog food dispenser we worked on a couple years ago right there. Um, machined wood, right? And so that's its own challenges of quality control and moisture and finish quality. Um, and then we work with them to make a plastic one. So it's like large format, non-warping surfaces, but how to make it feel like part of the same brand. We've done that with an internet connected display. It was a wood machined enclosure, transitioned them to plastic as well. But yeah, crazy materials.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

What's what's something that caught you off guard? You know, some customer comes in and says, hey, I'm trying to do this thing, and maybe there's a process or a technique or something that you've never done. Like, what's anything, anything that like kind of punched you in the face?

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Um, I've worked on some weird ones. I'm trying to think of like a lot of overmolded rubbers on plastics get really complicated.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Um, how to get those to stay together? Um, shut off surfaces for that. Um, I'm looking around the room right now to see any good examples. There's it's usually just like how do we cram the most amount of technology into the smallest available form factor without spending eight years on like nipping and tucking circuit boards? And that kind of challenge of the puzzle of how things go together, like each one is so different, right? Like the toilet camera is waterproof and has to be easy to clean. But the solar-powered Bluetooth speaker we worked on, like I need it to, I should be able to drop it from here and it won't explode. Like the very different requirements, and this is waterproof in a different way than like a toilet camera is.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

So I I I'm sorry, I'm just like fascinated by your your position and your role because it's it's one of these one of these jobs where the longer you do it, the better you get at it. Like because there's just chaos getting thrown at you all the time until you're just like used to the chaos. And like you said, like you go to China um and you're like, hey, I have this crazy thing, and they're like, Oh, I just did it last week. I mean, that's that's you basically.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

I'm on call, like I am frequently on calls, just like, oh, and I like run out of the room and I come back. I'm like, I did this. Like it's like there's a reason this is set up like this, is for like quick draw to show things and like explain things to clients.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

So I'm jealous of your job. And and I bet a lot of people listening are like, oh my god, that's my dream job. How like looking back in time? I mean, we've talked about your path to this this point today. If you were gonna recommend to somebody, like, hey, here's exactly how you would do it, like what advice would you give somebody?

SPEAKER_01 43:18

I think you you hit the nail on the head earlier, which is like make mistakes on the company dime for a while. Um I wasn't good at injection molding until I did it for seven years, and then I was like, I'm good at this now, right? So you want to make those costly mistakes on somebody else's dime. Um, but yeah, get the reps in and then like try freelancing, consulting work. Once you we we don't work with anyone really without seven to ten years of industry experience because you don't know, you don't have those stories and scars yet. Um so yeah, get the reps in, then like come chat with us. We onboard people all the time.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

What what's what's the best way to um to work with you either as a customer or as like an engineer designer? Like what's how how how do you how do you get into the the informal network?

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Um for clients, just email us. We always will talk to people. Um that's like my primary job is like screening and making sure it's a good fit. Um we have a we have the 500 core folks on our network that we've already vetted, myself and Nate and Lindsay are our marketing uh CMO. But there's a whole holding tank of people who have applied and we're like, we're too busy. Um so try and get a referral. Go to we run hardware meetups around the whole world now. So we run these networking events where you can meet other nerds and have a beer and a pizza at like a startup's office and talk shop after hours. It's a really good way to get the community around you and know people, and then try and get a referral that way. Uh I'm also on LinkedIn. It's a curse, but I I live on LinkedIn for our job. So like hit me up. Um but yeah, we always just like we want to onboard people who are excited about working on new things and and good people.

SPEAKER_02 44:57

So if if I have if I have an idea, like we we have customers like this all the time who who just have an idea and they want to get it made, but they don't have the means, they don't even know how to design. Well there's a lot of those people out there. What's the best way for them to actually like get their product made and hold it in their hands? If if someone came to you just as an ideas guy, uh what would be the first step that you would tell them? Whether it's using informal or not?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Turn off Claude and Chat GPT and Gemini, because that just leads people to stray all the time. We get all these like, I'm a genius, uh, here's my ideas, and they're like crazy 600-page technical docs. Turn off the turn off the AI. Um, get a 3D printer if you are technically inclined, or find a friend who has one. But the steps to go from like using electronics, like from an idea to manufactured goods, is typically build it with off-the-shelf parts, like your little circuit boards, you know, like this is eight dollars, go get one. You can program it, use AI for that, that's fine. Um, build it, get it working, show it to friends, and then come to us when you're like, I know how it should work, I know what it should do, I want it smaller, I want it sexier, I want it whatever, this material. Um, that's what we're really, really good at is going from five prototypes to 50,000 manufactured things. That step is really hard, and that's where those experts come in. But like you can build something pretty quickly now these days. You can vibe code, you can solder, like you can do it, um, and then come to us.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

So, yeah, uh educate yourself, get your hands a little bit dirty. You'll be a better customer, you'll be a better client if you actually like put in some of the reps before you go in. Cool. I love that. Um be patient. Like, oh shit. Oh yeah, that was gonna be that was gonna be like my first question.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

No how.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Oh, okay. I am so thank you, Dom. That was we almost we almost ended this without this incredible question. Um, dude, you were in a red hot chili peppers cover band?

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Not only I was in Vermont's finest.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Oh, well, of course, yes. Out of how many?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

One.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Okay, that yeah, that's there.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

I think so. Yeah, we are I was in a band called Overfunk, which is apparently one of their songs. I'm not like I'm not like the biggest Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, but they're fun. And I was on Craigslist and found musicians looking to play. And so I was like, alright, I'll play. And I what I didn't realize is we were gonna do a four and a half hour long set. So I learned four and a half hours of Red Hot Chili Peppers music, which is too much. Um what do you play?

SPEAKER_02 47:38

What what was your role?

SPEAKER_01 47:40

I play drums.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Um, so like right behind you is an electric drum kit, and then on the other side is the acoustic kit.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

But you weren't you weren't flea, like you weren't out there in your underwear, you know, just rocking for four. Okay, yeah. Was there a was there flea on Stitch?

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Oh, we we had a flea. That's what made it, right? Our bass player was incredible. Slap bass, like just brought the energy. He's so much fun to play with. Um, then we had a singer and a guitarist, and they were all killer. And they're also all a decade younger than me. And so then I had my I have a two-year-old at home now, so two and a half years ago, I was like, I gotta stop doing this. And so I haven't played for a while.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Okay. Well, um, if anyone in the Vermont area needs uh someone for their Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band, please. Okay, awesome. Um one one last question. It's uh you have one piece of advice for the listeners. It can be about anything, just something that you want to end on. Um something that's gonna stick with with the people.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

To the youngsters.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

To the youngsters out there who are trying to find their path through this weird ass job market and in the world of manufacturing.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Yeah, so sorry. Um, I guess first piece of advice is like try it. Try the thing. Like if you want to get into 3D printing, the barrier to entry is cheap. If you want to get into electronics, like the all these barriers are so low now. Try these things out, see what you like, see what you don't like, build this portfolio like as we were talking about. Get those battle scars early. Um, and you'll be a much better professional, a much better person if you know how things are made and how not to make things. Like those skills are learned skills from working, not from a university, right? Like grades don't really matter. I haven't used a I haven't done derivations in 13 years. Like you'll be okay. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Dude, thank you so much. This is great. Um, Sam, thank you so much for your time. Uh if if you guys are interested, go check out informal. Um, yeah, we'll put the website Logan. Logan will put it here, and now he's gonna put it Logan will put it here. Good job.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Go, and then try it over there.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

But this is where Don will play the outro so that I don't have to remember what our outro is. Do we have an outro? Am I supposed to say something?

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Can you say like thanks for listening? Love to have your feedback. Find us uh on Insta and YouTube at Send Cutsen.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

Can we just use that?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Thanks for joining us on today's episode. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can email us at justkinesend at sendkutsen.com or find us on socials at sendkutsend at gymbelosic. Don't forget to subscribe, download, and share with your friends. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode.